Steve Scalise

Scalise's great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy in the late 1800s.

He graduated from Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie in Jefferson Parish and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge with a major in computer science and a minor in political science.

At LSU, Scalise was a member of the Acacia Fraternity.

He serves on the board of the American Italian Renaissance Foundation, servicing the American Italian Cultural Center.

He is the first Louisianian to serve as majority whip since Hale Boggs of Louisiana's 2nd congressional district held the position from 1962 to 1971.

Stephen Joseph Scalise (born October 6, 1965) is an American politician who has served as the House majority leader since 2023 and the U.S. representative for LA's 1st congressional district since 2008.

In 1995, Scalise was recruited by Louisiana Republicans to run for Republican (formerly Democratic) State Representative Quentin Dastugue's District 82 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives after Dastague made an unsuccessful bid for Governor of Louisiana.

Scalise won the seat and was re-elected in 1999 and 2003.

In 2004, Scalise announced that he would run for the 1st congressional district, but deferred to the preference of party leaders and supported Bobby Jindal, who won the position vacated by the successful U.S. senatorial candidate, David Vitter.

He served until 2007.

On October 20, 2007, Scalise was elected in a nonpartisan blanket primary to the District 9 seat in the Louisiana Senate vacated by the term-limited Ken Hollis of Metairie.

Scalise received 19,154 votes (61 percent) in a three-way contest.

Thomas had also lost the race for the seat in 2007 to Scalise.

In 2007, when Jindal was elected to the governorship of Louisiana, Scalise announced his intentions to seek the House seat again.

This time he received Republican party backing.

In the special election on November 4, 2008, to fill the remaining three and one-half years in Scalise's state Senate term, Conrad Appel defeated Polly Thomas, 21,853 (52.1 percent) to 20,065 (47.9 percent).

Scalise was sworn in on May 7, 2008.

In the regularly scheduled election, Scalise was reelected over Democrat Jim Harlan, 66 percent to 34 percent.

Scalise defeated the Democratic nominee, Myron Katz, and an Independent, Arden Wells, in his 2010 bid for reelection.

In his own 2012 congressional race, Scalise prevailed with 193,490 votes (66.6 percent) over four opponents, the strongest of whom was the Democrat M. V. "Vinny" Mendoza, who finished with 61,979 votes (21.3 percent).

A second Republican, Gary King, received 24,838 votes (8.6 percent).

Independent Arden Wells ran again and received 4,285 votes (1.5 percent) in his second race against Scalise.

In 2011, Scalise became a co-sponsor of Bill H.R. 3261, otherwise known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (withdrawn January 23, 2012).

As chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Scalise dismissed Derek Khanna, a committee staffer, in December 2012 because of pressure from content industry lobbyists after the study committee published a memo advocating copyright reform.

He was the chair of the House Republican Study Committee from 2013 to 2014.

A member of the Republican Party, he served as the House majority whip from 2014 to 2019 and the House minority whip 2019 to 2023.

Before his election to Congress, Scalise served four months in the Louisiana State Senate and three terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

On June 19, 2014, Scalise's Republican colleagues elected him majority whip of the United States House of Representatives.

He assumed office on August 1.

Scalise was born in New Orleans, one of three children of Alfred Joseph Scalise, a real estate broker who died on October 8, 2015, at the age of 77, and Carol Schilleci.

His siblings are Glenn and Tara Scalise.

Fellow Republican Polly Thomas, an education professor at the University of New Orleans who subsequently won a special state House election in 2016, polled 8,948 votes (29 percent).

A Democrat, David Gereighty, polled 3,154 votes (10 percent) in the heavily Republican-oriented district.

Scalise, who was term-limited out of the House, was succeeded in the state House by his aide, Cameron Henry of Metairie.

In 2017, Scalise became the dean of the Louisiana congressional delegation upon Senator David Vitter's retirement.

Scalise's district includes most of New Orleans's suburbs, such as Metairie, Kenner, and Slidell, as well as a portion of New Orleans itself.

On June 14, 2017, during practice for that year's Congressional Baseball Game, Scalise was shot and seriously wounded by an anti-Trump domestic terrorist who was targeting Republicans.

Scalise underwent treatment for several months, returning to Congress on September 28.

On October 11, Scalise defeated Jim Jordan to win the Republican nomination for the October 2023 Speaker of the House election following the removal of Kevin McCarthy.

However, he withdrew a day later after failing to consolidate the necessary votes.